General Frequently Asked Questions

Dry risers should be serviced by a qualified mechanical engineer on a visual basis every six months and be subject to a pressure test annually. This inspection is recommended by BS 5306 (1976) Part 1 and BS9990:2005

All components require to be checked as risers are prone to neglect and sometimes vandalism.

Remember that failure to have your fire equipment fully serviced and maintained could result in prosecution and could void your insurance.

An engineer will visually inspect the entire system from roof to ground level. To test the riser it needs to be connected to a water supply at the inlet and pressurised to 10 bars. This should last at least 15 minutes.

Whilst this test is being carried out, the engineer will again check the entire system for any sign of leaks or damage. Any excessive loss in pressure while the test is in progress will be deemed as a fail. On completion of system validation the dry riser is fully drained.

We are happy to work to our customers demands and we are on call out 24 hours a day.

It is a statutory requirement that emergency lighting is installed in all business premises.

There is a legal responsibility that:-

All employers, landlords or occupiers under the Fire Precaution (Work Place) Regulations 1999 to carry out a risk assessment to ensure their premises can be evacuated quickly and safely in the event of an emergency.

The purpose of regular testing of your emergency lighting systems is, to ensure you continue to comply with regulations & that you, the person charged with the responsibility can be sure that your emergency lights remain ON and functional during a failure to the lighting supply facilitating the save evacuation of your building.

Remember that failure to do so could result in prosecution in the event of an accident caused by non-compliance and could void your insurance.

If you do not have any up to date records or the system has not been tested in the last 12 months it may not be safe in the event of an emergency.

Your emergency lighting systems will need to cover the following areas:

• Every exit door
• Emergency escape signs
• All emergency escape routes
• Lifts
• Fire extinguishers
• Break glass call points
• Any safety equipment or machinery that would need to be closed down in an emergency
• Outside each exit from the building.

Regulations on testing are covered by BS 5266, which details the requirements for emergency lighting.

Those requirements state that emergency lighting systems should be periodically tested and inspected to ensure that all luminaries operate correctly in power loss situations.

There are a number of checks that you can undertake yourself. It is recommended that the daily and monthly checks can be completed by the designated person with responsibility within the building.

The daily check involves completing a visual check of the emergency light indicators and the light fitting itself.

The monthly check should be for visible signs of damage to fittings and a quick operational test with any issues being recorded in a site log. (Full training on daily and monthly tests can be given and is surprisingly quick to undertake).

In using a specialist company such as FireCare. Our competent fully trained staff will undertake your annual check, ensuring that your installation is up to date and continues to comply with current legislation.

Once we have completed the annual test and inspection we provide a full register of all emergency lights on site along with test results.

We can provide you with a log book detailing tests completed to date and providing recording facilities and advice on monthly testing.

The log book should record the date of each inspections and test, date and details of any defects, action taken and detail any changes made to the installation.

A Six Month test can be undertaken in addition to the monthly and annual tests and will comprised of a full one hour duration test undertaken by a fully trained competent person.

FireCare solutions are Emergency Lighting specialists with a vast amount of experience in testing & inspecting lighting systems in a whole range of locations such as offices, schools, industrial & retail premises. Our team can provide advice & services for all your requirements, from a programme of on-going testing & certification to remedial works and design.

We are happy to work to our customers demands and we are on call out 24 hours a day.

We are happy to work to our customers demands and we are on call out 24 hours a day.

Conventional

Conventional fire alarm systems are the entry level for most fire system requirements. These alarms are suitable for small offices, nurseries, small hotels, warehouses, shops and any small business.

Twin Wire Fire Systems

Twin wire fire alarm systems are similar to a conventional system as they have detection zones. Advantageous of twin-wire systems allow you to incorporate sounders on the detection circuit which saving the cost to wire additional sounder circuits.

Addressable

Addressable fire systems transmit data over the detection circuit, providing intelligent information for the user including the exact location of the fire.   Addressable fire alarm systems are ideal for larger premises such as hotels, office blocks and large factories, where speed of detection and location is critical.

Automatic Fire Detection

Commonly used in most areas where a fire may occur from combustible materials such as paper, wood and textiles.

Wireless (Radio)

Radio or wireless fire alarms have the same makeup as a standard analogue addressable fire alarm system, with the advantage of no wires to interlink the detection and sounders. Wireless fire alarms are ideal for premises with multiple buildings or buildings where wires cannot be run.  They are also excellent where speed is of the essence.

These are also ideal for temporary structures.

Annual fire extinguisher maintenance is a legal requirement under Article 17 of the Fire Safety Order and must be completed by an experienced trained fire safety expert; that’s where FCS come in.

All new extinguishers purchased must be commissioned serviced when installed by a trained safety expert.

** Remember failure to have your extinguishers serviced annually could result in prosecution in the event of an accident caused by non-compliance and could void your insurance.

All of our engineers are fully trained to BS5306 standards and current regulatory and legal guidelines, and we welcome the opportunity to discuss your requirements with you.

We are a British Approvals for Fire Equipment (BAFE ) registered company.  This is the only accreditation scheme that independently assesses every single extinguisher engineer against regulations to ensure they are fully compliant to BS5306 standards.  If you are employing another company that is not BAFE approved you may not be getting the level of service or expertise you require.  Whether you FireCare Solutions or another company, we would always recommend you use a BAFE approved supplier.

Yes, every water, powder, foam extinguisher we supply come with a 5 year warranty and every Carbon dioxide Co2 extinguisher comes with a 10 year warranty.

If you extinguisher suffers a fault in this period we will replace it new for old.

This gives you peace of mind during your time with us.

We are happy to work to our customers demands and we are on call out 24 hours a day.

We do come across customer’s sites where a previous company may well have over estimated the volume required.

We will do a full review of your site and only put in the volume of extinguishers you need and not what we want to sell you.  We believe in customer service and doing what is right by our customers.

The legislation states that all extinguishers must be commission serviced before they are installed.

Some extinguishers do not work or are damaged in transit.  Also the commission service allows for extinguishers to be installed in the correct locations.  All extinguishers must be either securely fitted to a wall or on a stand.

We recommend you do not risk putting in extinguisher yourself without a commission service as faulty extinguisher could lead to prosecution.

Yes, under both the Health and Safety legislation PUWER and the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) order 2005 states all equipment must have signs.

Again we can help with this and carry out a full survey for you, so you do not purchase signs that are not suitable.

Responsible persons are required to take measures for fire-fighting in the premises (e.g. the drawing up of a suitable fire-fighting plan) where necessary for the purpose of safeguarding relevant persons in case of fire. Such measures as are taken will be tailored to the circumstances of the premises.

Responsible persons shall nominate a sufficient number of their employees to implement the fire measures and ensure that they are adequately trained and equipped to carry out their responsibilities.

The volume of Fire Wardens depends on many factors including the size of the premises, the volume of staff, the work carried out, the volume of visitors and who they are and so on, so there is no specific guidelines to this.

This provision of staff should complement rather than replace fire and rescue authorities’ fire-fighting role. The intention of the Order was to:

… make it clear that fire fighting equipment should be considered as a possible means of reducing a risk of fire spreading, providing protection and for providing assistance to others … It should also be considered as a possible means of mitigating the detrimental effects of a fire.

Nominated relevant persons should be able to tackle a fire if it is safe to do so and they know how to do it safely. They must not put themselves at risk to fight fire; their personal safety remains the priority.

Nonetheless this priority must not be used by responsible persons to avoid compliance with this requirement.  By training an adequate number of employees to undertake first aid fire-fighting duties and inherent in that training must be the teaching of employees to recognise when first-aid fire-fighting is or is not safe to implement.

This training must be suitable and sufficient and must be to a level which allows the employee to safeguard himself and other relevant persons on the premises.

An employee’s competence will decline if skills are not used regularly (e.g. in emergency procedures, operating a particular item of equipment or carrying out a task). Training therefore needs to be repeated periodically to ensure continued competence. Information from personal performance monitoring, fire safety checks, accident investigations and near-miss incidents can help to establish a suitable period for re-training.

Ideally this should be completed annually.

All staff will receive a certificate if they pass the training, a quiz/test will be carried out to ensure staff have taken on the training.

No, we do not wish to bring live fires to customers premises.

We bring extinguishers to use in practical scenarios where all staff will use a range of extinguishers on offer, getting to feel how they work and feel.  Staff will be challenged to use the theoretical training they have received and put it into practice in scenario based examples.